Vox Media is cutting pay and furloughing 9% of employees (opens in new tab)

Also notice how Vox workers have a union, while Amazon workers don’t.

> Vox factually reporting the tech industry is eschewing handshakes. Tweet author editorialises that Vox is telling them not to.

When you describe techies as terrified in the context of handshakes you make them sound terrified of handshakes which makes them look irrational to the average person.

When you immediately follow that up with “experts” saying everything is fine you cement the view in the readers mind that tech people are acting irrationally.

It's fine if you disagree, but it would be constructive if you can at least disagree with what was actually written instead of your interpretation of it.

Also, please keep in mind that "that tweeter", as you call him, taught bioinformatics at Stanford, has published papers in the field of clinical/microbial genomics and founded a biotech startup that sold for 375M. He's considerably more informed about the topic than any of the reporters sparring with him. https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1228752554022068226

And yes, he does have an axe to grind with Vox: https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1228447944287932416

As someone watching the whole thing unfold for months, from far away in Taiwan, I think he's completely right on this one.

What is the role of journalists? The defence that "basically the mainstream view in the US at the time" seems to me the antithesis of why we need journalists at all.

Far too much journalism is either weakly factual, where ideas like masks are taken prima facie and without much thought, or opinion pieces with an ideological bent.

What happened to investigating ideas, to see where they lead? To questioning everyone, no matter their credentials?

The role I would hope journalists would play is to hold people accountable, to question deeply the assumptions that "the mainstream view" entails. This Eric Weinstein tweet hit this home for me: https://twitter.com/ericrweinstein/status/124298155901717299..., which ends with:

> Bring us the heads of the incompetent for removal.

> Vox saying face masks aren't the best way to avoid Coronavirus. Actually basically the mainstream view in the US at the time

It was the mainstream view in the US because the media built the narrative that masks wouldn’t help...

> First tweet: Vox saying face masks aren't the best way to avoid Coronavirus. Actually basically the mainstream view in the US at the time,

Well, it was definitely mainstream after Vox reported on it.

I am not sure if the comment to which you are replying has since been edited, but the first tweet is a comparison of a Vox article from February, advising against buying face masks, next to a tweet by Vox's founder, saying he ordered his in February when they were available. I agree that that is not a reasonable comparison because the article was not written by the founder, but your commentary does not reflect the essence of (current) first tweet.

Almost makes you wonder if balajis has a personal gripe with vox or recode or Ezra or Kara.

Balaji is a crypto bro and epitome of technocrats who thinks just because they are (rich|famous|networked), they are experts on everything. Fact of the matter is, Balaji doesn't know any more about Covid than what is reported. He's using hindsight bias to claim that media reported was false.

About those mask recommendations...

Edit: Surgical masks vs respirators. Any advice omitting the distinction is suboptimal.

Surgical masks are still useless. Best case is they serve as sneeze guards and visual reinforcement.

N95 rated respirators are useful. And in short supply. Since healthcare workers desperately need them and most people don't, their use is currently weakly recommended.

Face shields plus respirators are good. I'm not sure about shields and surgical mask combo.

IMHO, Vox has been superior. Especially in comparison. They have explainers and podcasts dedicated to just coronavirus and COVID-19. Updated frequently. When the truth & reconciliation process starts, Vox is pretty far down the list of belligerents.

Maybe in this situation it's simply useful to understand what exponential growth means.

To see numbers go like 1, 2, 4, 8, 16... and react with "oh, this seems really bad" while everyone else is like "16 infected people among how many millions? that's nothing. flu kills more people".

If a news outlet is struggling that means readership is down. If readership is down that implies they are not producing a product worthy of people’s time. Seems bad to me.

> You're comparing what you know now to what was known at the time of each report.

That's a bold claim! I've been following this since December and talked about it in my podcast before people in the US, my co-host included, were taking it very seriously.

Not only that, I was ordered by the Taiwanese CDC to wear a mask for 14 days back in February after taking a brief weekend trip to Japan.

I haven't put much faith in the WHO since experiencing their politically-driven incompetence during SARS 18 years ago when I was a student. In many ways, this entire experience has felt like a replay of SARS, but with a few new verses.

> You're comparing what you know now to what was known at the time of each report.

Not at all.

We are using what we know now to evaluate what tech people said vs what the media said - and the tech people were overwhelmingly right and the media overwhelmingly wrong.

No, not at all.

I consider most media sources biased (right or left) and also consider them to have various degrees of integrity.

For integrity, I give Vox good credit for running a story that deserves attention but runs counter to their political leanings.